


meanwhile, in an alternate dungeon...

by iamsolarflare



Category: Hermitcraft
Genre: (takes place after the s7 war if you're a SPAU buff), (unfortunately for the person who dies), AU Crossover, Action, Apex uses she/it pronouns, Gen, Moderate depictions of violence, Shadow People AU, Tag wranglers stop tagging Hermitcraft as RPF challenge, Temporary Character Death, hels!tango is named Waltz bc having two characters with the exact same name was going to kill me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:40:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26908273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamsolarflare/pseuds/iamsolarflare
Summary: [tomska voice continues] ...where Hermits can summon shadow clones of themselves...aka - Evil!Tango from Dungeons and Deceit attempts the same thing, but with one very key difference: this is the Shadow People AU, and Decked Out already has a resident stabby person lurking in its depths.
Relationships: None
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	meanwhile, in an alternate dungeon...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ShadeSwift99](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadeSwift99/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Dungeons and Deceit](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26607160) by [ShadeSwift99](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadeSwift99/pseuds/ShadeSwift99). 



> a) shade i am so sorry for naming Hels!Tango something other than The Cooler Tango, Waltz was an in-dev name and it accidentally stuck. i hope i at least did his personality justice!
> 
> ii) the canon divergence in this fic starts about halfway through Chapter 4 of Dungeons and Deceit.
> 
> 3) thanks so much to ruby for helping me write Apex! i couldn't have done this without you, and you were a joy to co-write with.

Impulse sat bolt upright, heart pounding, still a little panicked by the sight of the Decked Out walls around him. Of course he’d remembered to set his spawn in here the one time he’d have very much liked his spawn to not set. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and tried to calm down. Okay. One: Tango’s evil doppelganger had ruined a perfectly good Decked Out run, because of course he’d had to have good luck right then. Two: Tango had an actually very evil doppelganger, which was the actual priority if he was going to be honest.

He picked up his armor first, carefully checking the durability before sliding on the helmet. That weight on his head was somewhat calming. He took a deep breath and thought about his situation - okay. Tango was currently being haunted. Who else was online… Zedaph? Zedaph. He’d message Zed about this.

> <ImpulseSV> zed there’s a big problem at decked out
> 
> <ZedaphPlays> I know, I’m in the dungeon

...Great. Great! That was not good at all! He rubbed the bridge of his nose again, trying to disperse the adrenaline headache, and focused on communicating back to Zedaph.

> <ImpulseSV> ?
> 
> <ZedaphPlays> invis
> 
> <ZedaphPlays> he hasn’t seen me yet

That… was actually helpful! Sweet. Okay. He took another breath. There were actually several ways out of this.

> <ImpulseSV> how long left
> 
> <ZedaphPlays> not long enough

Thanks, Zedaph. Real helpful and extremely reassuring. Before he could fire back another question, his communicator buzzed softly again.

> <ZedaphPlays> where’s your stuff?

...Kind of a dumb question, but he was  _ also _ panicking under pressure right now, so he could hardly blame Zed when the guy was  _ in the room _ with the Extremely Evil Tango.

> <ImpulseSV> decked out locker

Another buzz on the commlink.

> <ZedaphPlays> don’t come in, I’m going to try to negotiate with the dungeon master

Uhh.

> <ImpulseSV> what, Tango? Evil Tango? there’s no reasoning with the evil one and I’m pretty sure Tango’s captured
> 
> <ZedaphPlays> no, the ACTUAL dungeon master.

It took Impulse a second to buffer through that. If Zedaph wasn’t talking about either of the Tangos, he was talking about…

Ah. Okay. This was probably going to go well.

> <ImpulseSV> good luck!

No response. Zedaph was probably sneaking his way through the dungeon right now trying to find the “actual dungeon master.” Impulse frowned. Normally she hung out around the throne room, but given Evil Tango’s attitude, he was  _ sure _ that they would’ve already crossed paths if so.

Well. Either way, Evil Tango was screwed. He sat back on the bed, took a deep breath, and then jumped as the door opened.

Zedaph grimaced sheepishly as he ducked through the doorway. “I couldn’t find her, and there were like… four whole ravagers around some of the areas she normally patrols, and  _ then _ my invisibility ran out so I kited them towards Not Tango and booked it.”

Impulse sighed and just sort of elected to fall over directly into the spawn-setting bed from exhaustion. “If he’s on the move, he’s gonna run into her.”

“Yeah.” Zedaph sat down next to him. “You doing okay?”

“I will not be until I see that bastard’s head on a wall.”

“Soon as he runs into the True Dungeon Master, it  _ will _ be,” Zedaph snickered, and then his face abruptly fell. “I just hope Tango’s alright. Not Tango took all his stuff and put him in a box.”

Impulse sighed and sat back up to pat Zed on the back. “I guessed as much. All we can do now is wait, unfortunately. You want to head back in kitted up?”

Zed shook his head. “Absolutely not. Let’s just wait it out for a bit, please.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

* * *

Waltz was having a time. A bad one.

Some blonde-haired  _ ass _ he’d never seen had run straight into the room where he’d been keeping his inferior counterpart, followed by  _ four _ ravagers, and then he’d  _ lost _ the blonde somewhere in the maze  _ and _ had to abandon boxing up Tango temporarily. He sat down against the side of the well, gritting his teeth at that  _ obnoxious _ heartbeat sound. As soon as he had tools he was going to rip that redstone out, it was doing  _ nothing _ but being a bother.

He hadn’t even managed to steal Tango’s armor. At least -- he cocked his head to the side, heard nothing, and continued his thought process -- he’d lost the ravagers. Now it was just a matter of making it back to the chamber and getting everything together.

Waltz stood up and stretched. All he had to do was just sweet-talk a little, maybe intentionally set up a “he’s the evil clone” situation with Tango so everyone else would genuinely believe he was Tango. This was nothing but a temporary setback-

-A twig snapping. He whipped his head around, drawing his sword loudly, but saw nothing - no ravagers in sight, and this wasn’t the place zombies spawned either. Good, he was just being paranoid.

Waltz rubbed the bridge of his nose as he saw one of the shadows shift slightly, distort unnaturally. Surely that was just this setback getting to him. He’d lost the ravagers, the zombies weren’t aggroing, he was…

“No weapons in the dungeon.”

Who the  _ fuck _ had said that. He fell into a ready position, lip curled up into a snarl, eyes flickering from potential hiding place to hiding place. He had to credit Tango, there were a  _ lot _ of potential ambush spots. Of  _ course  _ that had to be working against him right now, didn’t it?

The crunch of gravel behind him. He instinctively twirled on his heel, raised his sword to parry the incoming blow -- something glanced off the metal before his eyes could focus on the attacker, and then they were already gone.

“Huh.” A soft snicker from behind him -- already? How were they moving? He whipped around, expecting to see nothing again if this pattern held. Sure enough, nothing.

Well, whatever the case, they couldn’t hope to defeat him in a one-on-one match if they were hiding like this. Not lowering his guard, he brought his shoulders up and stared daggers at the last known position of his opponent.

“Whoever you are, you might as well give up now. Hiding in the shadows won’t do you any good, because I’m the superior fighter and as soon as I find you, I  _ will _ make you pay for this insolence.”

Nothing. No response. How  _ immature _ . Waltz rolled his eyes and turned back towards the entrance to the graveyard, ready to go back to what he’d been doing before, and then froze.

A shape at the entrance. Tall and slim, just a few shades lighter than jet-black, with glittering gold outlines framing some sort of robot body and a closed visor of the same color. The shape grinned at him, teeth glinting that same golden color as it took a single step forward.

He narrowed his eyes, raised his sword.

The shape lunged.

Waltz ducked to one side; the shape drew a shortsword in one hand, twirled it, and lunged again. He gritted his teeth and parried the incoming blow from the shortsword, taking a step back onto more solid ground.

Another few blows -- the swings were wide and choppy, easy to bash aside. He snickered. “You’re not so good of a fighter, just like I thought.”

Actually, come to think of it, Waltz knew this shape just vaguely enough. The Hels version of them had never been all that good in combat, too soft for his own good. No wonder this weird shadow copy was no match for him. He grinned, pressed his advantage. “Guess you’re not so tough in any dimension, huh Biffa?”

“Bold assumption,” the shadow said, “as I am not Biffa.”

“ _ Sure _ ,” he drawled in response, dragging out the word contemptuously. “Maybe you go by a different  _ name _ in this dimension, but I’d bet money on you being just-” he twisted his sword, loosening the shadow’s grip on its own shortsword “-as easy-” dodge left, stomp downwards on one foot (he felt his foot hit grass, it must have moved aside in time) “-to  _ kill _ .” Waltz flicked the sword aside and plunged his own blade straight into the shadow’s guts. 

Or tried to. Sure, it was  _ there, _ he could literally see it right in his opponent’s torso and poking out the other side, but it didn’t  _ feel _ stuck in any flesh. And the shadow wasn’t exactly reacting like it had just been stabbed, or even really reacting at  _ all. _

“Unfortunate decision, really,” the shadow deadpanned, “because now it’s time to pay up.” The shift in tempo was immediate; the shadow wrapped its hand around his and used him as leverage to pull the blade from its gut.

Waltz took a step back, reassessing the situation. It seemed vaguely likely that swords weren’t going to work on this copy, then. What a  _ nuisance _ . That,  _ and _ the fact that it had just sort of wrenched him aside, but that was likely the result of it being immune to slashing damage as opposed to any sort of  _ actual _ superiority in combat.

“Oh, what a shame, I’ll just have to find  _ another _ way to kill you.” He grinned at it, dragging his sword along the ground just slightly. “I can still take my time with  _ that _ . Now move aside, you’re in my way.”

It laughed, a sharp, barking noise that echoed between the trees. A quick turn of its wrist changed its grip on its sword as it watched him. “Have fun trying to do  _ that, _ ” it cackled, unable to contain its mirth. 

Slashing wouldn’t work. And the shadow’s attitude was frankly starting to get on his nerves. A couple parried blows was good fun. This much was seriously starting to inconvenience him. He sheathed his sword, held his hands up.

“My weapon’s not out anymore. You should have no more issues with me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have more important things to attend to.”

The shadow considered this, twirling its own blade in a flashy attempt to intimidate. “Alright,” it conceded, sheathing its blade. “Don’t let me catch you breaking the rules again.”

There. An  _ easy _ victory. Waltz kept his eye on the shadow as he walked past it, fighting back the urge to say something smug. It wouldn’t do to talk down to someone he could still twist to his side, after all.

Though, actually, there  _ was _ a question he felt like asking. “So, if your name isn’t Biffa, then I suppose I should ask what your name  _ is? _ ”

“Apex,” it said, not turning to look at him. “You should try playing the game sometime. Might learn a thing or two.”

“I am, actually.” The lie rolled off his tongue easily. “I just forgot to leave my sword at the entrance, and I must confess you gave me a bit of a scare. I didn’t expect a sapient person to be part of this game, after all.” He’d have this strange shadow under his thumb in no time if it was susceptible to flattery, of that much he was sure. And  _ what _ an asset it would be, too! 

The shadow scoffed and skulked away, dragging its feet through the dirt deliberately. Waltz elected to ignore it and turned away, headed back towards the prison he’d been keeping his inferior self in.

He paused partway through the blackstone walkways, cocking his head to the side. Someone was following him.  _ Apex _ was following him.

“What?” He couldn’t keep the mild annoyance out of his tone - he had better things to do than deal with this shadow following him around the dungeon the whole time, valuable asset or not.

“For someone who claims to be a skilled fighter,” Apex drawled, “you really should know better than to turn your back on your opponent.” 

He turned around a bit further, now keeping both Apex and the other exit in his line of sight. “I believe we agreed to a truce after I conceded and agreed not to break any more rules?”

“A ruse,” Apex said. It readied its sword, having drawn the blade whilst tailing him.

Waltz rolled his eyes and drew his own sword again. “Well then, I suppose I’ll have to break the rules again.”

Apex’s smile was more like a snarl as it stepped into a fighting stance and  _ lunged.  _ He stepped back evenly, got his footing, and parried the blow easily -- angry fighters made sloppy attacks, simple enough to avoid or redirect. The second swing of a knife Waltz hadn’t seen Apex draw came as an unpleasant surprise, however.

“Dual swords. Fascinating.” Waltz kept his tone light and conversational, took another step back out of range and went through his options. His own sword wouldn’t work, but surely there had to be some way of damaging his opponent… maybe its own blade, actually. He filed that in the back of his mind and started looking for an opening.

An opening was not going to be easy to find. Apex knew its weapon well, clearly, maybe had even been holding back during their first bout. It was not holding back now, directing a barrage of offensive blows upon Waltz’s waiting defense. He took another step back, twirled his sword to parry more effectively, focusing on the rhythm of the attacks.

One. Two. A few quick jabs. One, two,  _ there _ was an opening, a brief pause. He lunged, flicking his wrist to twist Apex’s sword out of the way before grabbing its offhand by the wrist and twisting, sending its own dagger right into its side.

A puff of yellow particles. He grinned widely. “Not so invulnerable anymore,  _ are _ you?”

It stared at the knife sticking out of its wound. The low chuckle it made might have been nervous. Waltz took a step back and bowed mockingly. “I  _ did _ say you were no match for me, didn’t I? Now, I  _ do _ think we could come to some sort of arrangement that could benefit both of us, one where I don’t have to kill you and you still get to do… whatever it is you do. You see, I’m only one person, and I  _ could _ use a right-hand associate at the moment-”

Apex moved suddenly, so fast Waltz couldn’t track its movement. He didn’t feel the initial stab, but the slow drag of Apex’s sword  _ out _ of his side was excruciating. “No match, huh?” it taunted, twisting its blade as it exited Waltz’s side.

He gritted his teeth, tried not to wince  _ too _ hard or make too much of a noise. Hels, that  _ hurt _ . And also was starting to piss him off. “You’re really starting to  _ bother _ me,” he snapped, lunging again, grabbing its sword-hand this time.

Its free hand grabbed his wrist, pulling his hand off of its own -- he tried to wrench its wrist back, but it seemed to have suddenly gotten  _ far _ stronger. “ _ Good. _ ” Apex slashed at him again, feinting a stab to his torso and plunging its blade into his thigh.

Once more, Waltz had to do his best to pretend the wound hadn’t affected him. He staggered back a couple more steps and felt his back hit the chain post over the edge of the walkway. Diplomacy clearly wasn’t working. Neither was swordplay. Waltz took a breath in, wincing as he jostled the wound on his side, then pulled out his shield.

“Fine. No more playing nice from me.” He lunged once more -- aiming for Apex’s right side, then raising his shield and twirling it, smacking into the shadow head-on instead, using his free hand to grab its offhand and attempt the same dagger trick again.

It wrenched its arm away again, but not quite in time -- the arc of the dagger didn’t exactly plunge into its side, but it  _ did _ leave a long scrape down the shadow’s thigh.

Waltz felt Apex’s hand grab the back of his shirt, and then he was falling off the walkway. The catwalk below him was just barely close enough; he pushed off of the ledge of the walk above and hit the blackstone below  _ hard _ . He wasn’t on  _ fire _ , so that was good, but he was starting to suspect that attacking Apex head-on wasn’t going to work too many more times. He’d have to run, lure it into an ambush.

He scrambled to his feet and sprinted down towards the netherbrick entryway, hopping across the fence parkour as fast as he possibly could. All he had to do was put some distance between himself and Apex, give himself a little time to heal up.

He could hear the echoes of Apex’s boots on the floor behind him -- not even rushed, barely faster than a speedwalk, even and steady. His heartbeat pounded in his ears (no, that was just the heartbeat mechanic, it  _ couldn’t _ be him) as he broke into a faster sprint, practically skidding down another corridor to try and distance himself a little more.

A scraping noise. Apex, still keeping that same casual pace, was dragging one of its swords against the ground -- maybe the wall, judging by the position of the noise? Waltz took a deep breath, pausing just a second too long. He could see Apex just barely out of the corner of his eye, and he wasn’t healed up yet.

It grinned at him, raised one hand, and drew a finger across its throat. Waltz fought back the temptation to swear and ducked down another corridor, ready to sprint again, and froze.

It was a dead end. Nothing but the hall he’d come down off to one side, and a water column at the end with Tango’s handwriting on it --  _ Do Not Enter, Ravager Swimming Pool Below! _ the sign said. He was trapped.

The steady footsteps came to a stop behind him. He turned, silently dreading the exact thing he was going to see. Sure enough, there was Apex; blocking the only exit, sword in hand, menacing grin splitting its face. The water bubbled, static in his ears as his heart hammered in his chest.

He took a step back, raised his hands in the air, tried to keep his voice even and calm. “We can talk about this.”

“We  _ could _ ,” Apex agreed, “but I’m going to enjoy  _ this _ much more.” It raised its sword, stepping closer to him, and swung. He ducked, felt the blade just  _ barely _ miss the back of his neck, and did his best to slide under the shadow’s arm and out into the corridor behind.

Something caught his ankle, tripping him in his mad dash to escape. He felt Apex’s boot between his shoulder blades, pinning him to the ground. “You may not be Tango,” it said, pressing the tip of its blade to the back of Waltz’s neck, “but I’d bet money on you being just-” he felt a drop of blood roll down his neck as his skin broke “-as easy-” the blade pressed deeper, digging into the meat of his neck before scraping against bone “-to  _ kill. _ ” Apex thrust its sword down, impaling Waltz upon it.

* * *

Zedaph looked up from his communicator. “Hey, Xisuma’s back. I told him the dungeon shadow was probably handling Not-Tango right now. D’you think she’s done with him?”

Impulse checked his watch. “It’s been… half an hour?”

Zedaph’s eyes widened. “Oh man, it’s been half an hour. Tango’s been in there for half an hour, just sitting in an obsidian box. Even if Apex  _ isn’t _ done with that doppelganger yet, we’ve gotta get him out before he decides to punch his way out -”

A loud  _ thunk _ noise caused both of them to jump. Zedaph squinted at the floor below him. “Hey, you see that block breaking, right?”

Impulse had already taken his pickaxe out. “Yep.”

A few seconds later, a very disgruntled-looking Tango had been hauled out of his own redstone by his two friends. He sat down on the bed, then fell backwards onto it entirely. “Idiot- forgot to obsidian the ground under me-”

“Take it easy, dude,” Impulse said. “It’s been a long day.”

Tango laughed hoarsely. “No  _ kidding _ .” He took a deep breath, then continued talking, voice faltering less this time. “Anyway. Hels Tango, whatever the heck his name is, he didn’t obsidian the ground under me, and I guess he didn’t know that a lot of the redstone is under the game. I punched through by hand -- ugh, I’m going to need to replace some blocks -- and crawled through my redstone. Any idea where my doppelganger got off to?”

“We think Apex is, uh, dealing with him,” Impulse said helpfully.   
  
Zedaph squinted at the bed. “It’s been thirty minutes, normally she’s done by now. Unless -- wait. _No way_. Tango, Impulse, wasn’t Not-Tango talking about using the dungeon as a base of operations?”

Impulse nodded grimly. “Something about there already being a throne for him, I think?”

Zedaph tried very hard not to crack up. Getting killed over and over by anybody was  _ not _ funny, and yet in this specific case it was also  _ extremely _ funny. “Guys? I think Not-Tango might’ve set his spawn in the barracks.”

Tango clearly did not have the same amount of self-control, and burst out laughing. “Oh my  _ God _ , he’s trapped in there with Apex!”

“It’s the Season Six experience all over again!” Impulse fell back down onto the empty bed, speech muffled by his hands over his face. “I can’t  _ believe _ this.”

Zedaph shook his head slowly. “I almost feel bad for him.”

“He killed Impulse and tried to lock me in an obsidian prison, and also said he was going to take my place on the server and manipulate everyone to follow him.”

“I said  _ almost _ .” Zedaph stood up, dusting off his pants. “So, I take it Decked Out is going to be under maintenance for a little while more?”

Impulse didn’t move from the bed. “Yeah. Give me a minute, then we can leave and Tango can put the usual blocks over the door.”

“I’m gonna add a sign this time. The people deserve to know what’s happening.” Tango waved his hands in the air. “Warning: doppelganger disposal currently in progress, contact Apex for more details!”

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for trapping your very good villain in a death loop with knockoff biffa, shade


End file.
